Last year I managed to write a post every month about ten things that had happened to me in the month that were worth feeling happy and positive about. There were a number of benefits to writing these regular monthly posts;

There were some months where it seemed like loads happened. I would be excited to write about them and share my joy with the people reading the posts, but some months I felt like there wasn’t much to write about at all, yet every month without fail, I still managed to write something. I proved to myself that if last month felt a bit rubbish and I still managed to find ten things that were worth feel happy and positive about, then looking forward to the month ahead I always knew I was going to have at least ten moments in the month that would bring me joy.

I found joy in little things. There were always going to be big moments, events, places traveled to that were going to make it onto my monthly lists, but when writing these posts I also found that little things like the change in the weather, a coffee with a friend or something that made me smile also brought me just as much joy. I also found that the achievements of those close to me were also worth writing about because seeing them happy made me happy too.

It kept me writing. In the months I felt lower, I didn’t feel particularly creative. I spent a long time doubting my own abilities, whether anyone actually cared what I wrote about and really not wanting to write for the sake of writing because I knew, quite frankly, the lack of energy that I felt physically and mentally would come across in what I was writing and I really did not want that. I did however make a promise to myself that I’d write these posts every single month for a year and I am glad I stuck to it. I’ve heard from a lot of people that write blogs that continuing to write keeps you going. Not writing will end up in a spiral of feeling low, so not writing, then feeling low that you’ve not written in a while, attempting to write something half-heartedly, feeling low about it again and then just not posting. Whilst there were a few months that I just did not want to sit down and write, I managed to get words on paper (screen) and really felt like I’d accomplished something by the end of December.

So why is it changing?

For the last few months of the year, partially because I wasn’t exactly fuelled with self-esteem and self-love, I started to start to dislike solely writing about me. In school I really hated the writing classes in English that we’d have to write about ourselves, much preferring to write stories, factual essays and literature analyses, so I still find it both odd and interesting that I have managed to start a blog predominantly talking about my own experiences. Whilst I recognise this has been a really beneficial exercise for me personally, I started to think about what I like to read as a reader and I was not so sure if 10 things every month solely about what went right in that person’s life was something I could dedicate myself to reading each month. I do like hearing stories of awesome and wonderful things people have gotten up to, but I am also a fan of reading ‘positive news’ stories that try to share some light on the good that has happened recently, as opposed to the negativity that we often hear and watch on the news.

There is so much going on at the moment; my homeland still seems to think it is a wonderful idea to go ahead with Brexit, a certain president still seems adamant on building walls and hurling abuse at individuals via social media and our planet seems to be getting hotter by the minute with David Attenborough stating that climate change could “ lead to the collapse of civilisations and the extinction of “much of the natural world” (BBC). There’s clearly so much to be happy and positive about right? Yet did you know that in 2018;

You see, it’s not all bad news. Yet is that not all that we seem to be hearing at the moment. Therefore, I want to start writing about the positive events happening around the world, with our environment, society, arts and culture, in politics and any other good news that puts the message out there that positivity does surround us and there are things to be happy about.

Each month I will be posting a ‘happy and positive’ post that looks at ten things that month that are about change, the kindness of others, increases in awareness of issues, projects developed to help others and much more.

Hopefully it will be an insight into the ‘smaller’ new stories and will shed some positive light into your news feed/email each month.

If you know of any positive news stories happening in your area or across the globe that you think is worth mentioning, send me a message or leave a comment and I will look into it.

I look forward to getting stuck in with these new (and hopefully improved) monthly posts and keeping the positive news flowing for 2019.